“This is getting out of control!” It was Hank, sending me an instant message in the middle of the day.
“Uh oh, what’s wrong?” I responded.
“First Matt Lauer and now Garrison Keillor!”
I knew what he was talking about right away. I knew because a friend I was close to once upon a Matt Lauer crush had text me the morning’s headline. (That crush had extinguished entirely years ago, after Ann Curry’s abrupt departure and his dickish reaction to the whole situation. I like Ann Curry. She’s that perfect blend of wicked smarts and genuine compassion.) But Hank and Garrison Keillor … That’s something else entirely.
The news of Mr. Keillor would shatter Hank. I can’t tell you how many times my husband (who I often theorize to be 87 years old at heart) made us all listen to Prairie Home Companion on a long Sunday drive. Or how many times he’s read the book “Daddy’s Girl” to the kids. He knows it by heart … “O baby won’t you dance with me … Little baby bouncing on my knee … Wave your hands and shake your feet … Ooohh baby you’re so sweet .”
He keeps it in his top dresser drawer so he’ll always know where it is, the spine soft and worn from his rough fingertips. Now I wonder if I’ll ever hear the lyrics leave his lips again. Those melodic lines, sweetened by his comforting voice under an 8 o’clock moon.
“It makes me sad and scared,” Hank went on. “For you and for our girls. That you have to live in a world where this happens. Where it’s something you have to think about.”
(That’s why I married this one, guys.)
While I assured him that everything was going to be OK. That we would raise our girls to know the boundaries of what’s right and what’s wrong and how to be strong and speak up and speak out and find power in their voice. I don’t think it soothed his burning thoughts.
And it left this interesting questions, too: What is Garrison Keillor to us now, if not a magnetic storyteller and master of words? Is he simply to be known from this day forth as an imposter? A predator? A monster? What’s to become of all those characters left in Lake Wobegon?
Comedians, TV dads, distinguished newsmen, business moguls, film producers, playwrights, media executives, acclaimed actors, presidents and politicians … their talents and contributions obliterated entirely because they couldn’t follow the simplest of unspoken rules. Because they made the mistaken, narcissistic assumption that their power would override the prerequisite for consent. Because they operated under the foolish pretense that they were desired by every woman, simply because she knew his name.
Maybe it’s us. Maybe our expectations are just too high. Maybe it’s too much to expect someone with a gift for music or narrative or business to also be an upstanding citizen of this planet. For them to share something with a woman without expecting something physical in exchange as payment for their genius or attention. Maybe it’s too much to expect that someone tick all the boxes when it comes to character and human decency.
Maybe.
But then, I know many men who tick all those boxes.
Men who expect nothing but mutual respect in return.
I will teach my girls that this world is full of monsters and of men, but more of the latter. And that it’s important to recognize the difference. I guess I started the lesson the day I married their father. The day I picked him and all his decency out of the pool of potential suitors and said, “Yes! That one! I like what he stands for. I shall do life with him, forever.” I think it has to start with strong male figures. It has to start with celebrating the men who aren’t in those headlines. The ones who respect a woman’s mind and humor over any curve or inch of bare skin.
And then you have to offer them awareness. Because their dad can’t protect them always. And neither can their mom. But I can sure as hell encourage them to use their words for justice and their breath for equality, and that they have to grow louder when no one is listening. If a time comes when I need to, I can show them the army of brave women coming forward to say, “This was not right,” and how, sometimes, though not always, consequences do exist. Victims do have the final word. They get their power back.
That’s what I can do.
And as for Mr. Keillor and his brethren of offenders, what a disgraceful party you chose to attend. My only hope is that this onslaught of accusations and dismissals might settle into a wealth of healing, for all those involved. For the men and the woman … and the monsters as well.
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